Portside

The conflict in Washington State involves far more than a local dispute over wages and benefits. Boeing appears determined to set the bar higher in its labor relations. As is the trend in much of labor negotiations these days, the bosses have simply decided that moving forward, workers are going to have to forfeit the medical and retirement benefits their unions have previously secured.

Progressive organizing was indeed crucial to changing the filibuster, with Senators like Merkley and Udall working the inside game while the outside groups got the public riled up. Many Democratic senators—including Reid—didn’t want to do rules reform back in 2009 when the GOP began its unprecedented obstruction, and it took a lot of convincing.

If today’s extremist rhetoric sounds familiar, that’s because it is eerily, poignantly similar to the vitriol aimed squarely at John F. Kennedy during his presidency. And just like today, Texans were leading what some of them saw as a moral crusade. To find the very roots of the tea party of 2013, just go back to downtown Dallas in 1963, back to the months and weeks leading to the Kennedy assassination.

The oldest known genome of a modern human solves long-standing puzzles about the New World's genetic heritage.

Stephen Colbert: Nuclear Option in the Senate. Woody -- All You Fascists Are Bound to Lose. Siats - A New Mega Dinosaur. Every Nuclear Test. Music Love Army: We Are Not for Sale.

Doris Lessing, died this week at 94, was one of the major fiction writers of the second half of the 20th century and one of the most vividly representative literary figures of our times. She was a visionary, prophet, feminist icon and Nobel prizewinner given to constant literary reinvention. She was a young, romantic, passionate, fiercely ambitious single mother pounding away at a portable typewriter trying to keep it together, writes Clancy Sigal, of his former lover.

Climate Change crossroads - Super-Typhoon Haiyan, possibly the strongest such storm ever to hit land; Australia, elected a climate-change denialist as prime minister is experiencing its hottest year on record; the rest of the world is living through the seventh warmest year on record. And...young activists organizing a growing campaign to pressure universities and colleges to divest from the giant energy companies, to change the mood and calculations of our moment.

Reader Comments: Capitalism and Unemployment; New York and Seattle elections; more. Announcements: Human Rights Film Screenings New York City -Nov 20 26; Breaking the Silence-Oakland-Nov 23: Fighting Back Against Wall Street -NYC-Nov 25; Chanukah Message from Jewish Voice for Peace; The National Labor College; New Day New York Dec 5 Day of Action; 50% Off PM Press for the Holidays; Pvt Chelsea Manning-4th birthday in prison-Dec 17; Faith Petric Memorial -Berkeley-Jan 15

IF the fundamental issues that are of concern to the great mass of Americans - the collapse of the middle class, growing wealth and income inequality, growth in poverty, global warming - then (big IF), just maybe Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders will run for President in 2016. Both could challenge Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Taxing the wealthy and not cutting but expanding Social Security, could become their rallying cry.

Protests in Los Angeles, Miami, Bay Area, Chicago, Seattle, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Sacramento mark Largest Mobilization of Working Families in Recent History. Environmental, Religious, Women's & Immigrants' Rights Groups Join Workers to Call For An End to Illegal Retaliation, $25,000 a Year, Full-Time Work